Q6600 Best Possible Overclock

Pho3n1x

Pho3n1x

Pho3n1x

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Joined
25 Sep 2008
Posts
9
Hi all,

This is my first post on the forum and was wondering if i could have some advise on overclocking my Q6600 on air. This will be my first overclock and would appreciate a pretty much idiots guide to overclocking.

My system specs are:

CPU: Q6600 @2.4hz
DDR2: OCZ Gold 800mhz 6G
Motherboard: Asus P5KC Supports DDR2 or DDR3 Ram
Case: Antec 300
Power Supply: OCZ 600 Watts

Cheers :)
 
To be honest with you, thats a terrible board. Every P5KC i had suffered from immense vdroop issues and were no good for overclocking, i think theres a vdroop mod that helps but i never bothered as i had many better boards, only bothered to use it for stock builds on the cheap. Anyhow if its a decent Q6600 it'll do 333Mhz for 3Ghz with no bother at stock volts, might get 3.2 or 3.4 if its a decent chip but whatever you get i would bet my bottom dollar it'll clock a good bit further on a better board.
 
Thank you both for your replies, the pc is around 6 years old bought the parts when the Q6600 came out. I will have a tinker with the settings and see what i can achieve.
 
As justintime already said, your mobo will limit your overclock, expect around 3.0 to 3.4GHz ish
first of all, download cpu-z and run it, on the main screen, this tells you all the info you need, speed, voltage, fsb etc....
have a look under revision iirc it will say either G0 or B3.
G0's are better as they need less power, bit cooler and overclock higher.

this is a very basic explanation of overclocking

its basic maths. your Q6600 is rated at 1066mhz. you always divide this number by 4 so 1066/4= 266, this is your fsb. (or cpu frequency)
then your processor (cpu) has a multiplier of 9 (or cpu ratio)
so 266 x 9 = 2394mhz or 2.4GHz, your stock speed

boot into bios,
and disable C1est, and any other power saving features.

unlink your ram, using the ram divider, so it stays at stock speeds, you can overclock the ram later.
this means leave it at 800mhz (or 400mhz in bios, as its ddr2 its 400 x 2)
if you cant do this, make sure the fsb:dram ratio is 1:1 for now

can you raise the fsb? yours is now 266. (266 x 9 = 2394mb or 2.4ghz ) try rising it to 280
boot into windows
download realtemp and coretemp (google them)
install and run them
then download Intel Burn Test (IBT) and run it.
have a look in task manager and notice how much free ram is listed under the performance tab.

in IBT set threads to 4 (for 4 cores) and then click on custom ram and enter an amount just below the free amount.
eg. i have 2520mb free ram. so i enter 2500 into the custom ram.
run the test for 10 passes. for now,
keep an eye on temps (do not let it go over 80.c)

or download prime95 and run the torture test/large fft's

if test runs fine, go back into bios, and change frequency (fsb) to 300 (300 x 9 = 2700 or 2.7ghz) and repeat the tests.
keep doing this in 20mhz steps until windows will not boot. then just go back a step (remove 20 from the fsb) to the last stable frequency,
or
just raise the cpu voltage a couple of levels. it should now boot.
its a balancing act, higher voltages will get you higher fsb, but it will also give you higher temps.
my B3 revision Q6600 needs 1.39v in the bios to get to 3.3ghz.
if yours is a G0 revision, you should be able to get this speed at a lower voltage

max vcore (cpu voltage) is 1.5v
max temp is 80.C

the trick is to do this step by step,
Once you have a speed you are happy with, do an Intel burn test run for at least 30 passes and/or an overnight run of Prime95 blend test also for some reason using the x 9 multi, i couldn't get past 3.0ghz
so i dropped it to a x8 multi and i got it to 3.3ghz easily.

edit, you dont mention what cooler you have, the Q6600 is a hot beast, if using stock cooler, you will be lucky to get to 3.0GHz
 
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Thanks for the guide j.col, the fan i am using is an artic cooling freezer pro should be more than capable of handling high temperatures.

I have had a quick look on cpu-z and this is showing my fsb:dram ratio 2:3 by default, should a fsb:dram ratio always be 1:1?
 
A lot of older LGA775 boards and most if not all the nForce LGA775 boards struggle to provide enough amperage cleanly to get the most out of a Q6600 getting anything above 3GHz will be trick on a lot of them tho getting to 3GHz should be easy. From my experience most will hit 3.15GHZ +/- 50MHz on stock voltage. But a mixture of quality of the power supply stage, FSB holes, etc. will make it hard to get above that 100% stable.

On the right board they will do 3.6GHz and a good G0 on a good board will probably hit 4GHz.
 
Rroff said:
A lot of older LGA775 boards and most if not all the nForce LGA775 boards struggle to provide enough amperage cleanly to get the most out of a Q6600 getting anything above 3GHz will be trick on a lot of them tho getting to 3GHz should be easy. From my experience most will hit 3.15GHZ +/- 50MHz on stock voltage. But a mixture of quality of the power supply stage, FSB holes, etc. will make it hard to get above that 100% stable.

On the right board they will do 3.6GHz and a good G0 on a good board will probably hit 4GHz.
Click to expand...

Its a P35 board, however i think things are just too crowded and chopped about with the DDR3 and DDR2 support, the BIOSes were never good and vdroop horrendus.. had Q6600 that were banging away at 3.6Ghz on 1.35v on good P35 boards fail to do even 3.3GHz reliably.
 
Pho3n1x said:
I have had a quick look on cpu-z and this is showing my fsb:dram ratio 2:3 by default, should a fsb:dram ratio always be 1:1?
Click to expand...

no, its just while overclocking the cpu.
as the ram is linked to the fsb, if you are raing the fsb it will also raise the speed of the ram, this than cause you to be unstable, even if the cpu is fine.
so you just do it until the cpu is stable, then revert to stock speeds.

eg. if your cpu is at stock speed. your fsb is 266mhz, ram ratio is 1:1, (266 x 2 = 532mhz so your ram is underclocked.)
if you get the cpu to 3.0GHz its 333 x 9 (ram is then 333 x 2 = 666mhz)
if you didnt change the ratio and left it at 2:3, then when you get to 3.0GHz your ram will be at 499mhz, (499 x 2 = 998mhz iiirc) and as its rated at 800 (400 x 2) then it could fail.

some more info here http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?138583-Please-explain-concept-of-memory-dividers&
 
You should easily be able to get 3GHz using your board. The P45/X38/X48 chipset based boards were by far the best to get the most out of a Q6600 though.
 
I salvaged a SLACR (G0) stepping from a machine someone was skipping and have a Asus P5B Deluxe board going to see what it can do this weekend, 4ghz would be nice but as a cheap build I'll be happy with 3ghz :)
 
max i had one stable at was 3.6ghz on air. it would boot into windows at 3.8 and crash. 3.7 would fail prime and IBT. 3.6 was ok but temps a bit hot
 
iMacMart said:
I salvaged a SLACR (G0) stepping from a machine someone was skipping and have a Asus P5B Deluxe board going to see what it can do this weekend, 4ghz would be nice but as a cheap build I'll be happy with 3ghz :)
Click to expand...

you lucky sod! :D
nice pairing, i would say 3.6ish is easily reachable
 
j.col said:
you lucky sod! :D
nice pairing, i would say 3.6ish is easily reachable
Click to expand...

Trust me, 3.6ghz is not easily reachable.

If you have a low VID chip, good cooling and know your motherboard settings, they its achievable. But takes some time to get it fully stable at 3.6ghz with good temps.

I would say 3.2ghz if easily reachable, 3.4ghz is a good overclock and 3.6ghz is an excellent overclock. Anything about 3.6ghz and you have a magic chip (or proper water cooling)
 
i wish i could get mine to 4ghz. Have managed to boot into windows at that speed but its far from stable. Highest stable speed is 3.6ghz.
 
3.8 with mine was the best I could do and I had to lap it to get that with a Tuniq Tower on air :)

Its still in use as my daughters minecraft / internet box
 
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